How Much Does Elliot Stabler Make Per Episode? – Celebrity
Sarah Rodriguez
Updated on January 17, 2026
Now, if you remember, Meloni was once being offered a salary of roughly $10 million a year for his role as Stabler, meaning his per-episode earnings would be cut to around $300,000 from the $365,000 he was previously accustomed to.
What was Christopher Meloni’s SVU Salary? At the peak of his Law & Order: SVU career, Meloni and his co-star Hargitay were being paid approximately $395,000 an episode, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Per season, this amounted to an estimated $10 million salary—not too shabby at all!
After his and Hargitay’s contracts were up for renewal in 2011, the co-stars were reportedly offered a new deal of $8 million per season, as per TODAY.
The pair became synonymous with SVU since its inception in 1999, and needless to say, fans were heartbroken when Meloni’s character departed the series. Yet SVU always left the door open for his return. Now all these years later, it’s finally happened: Benson & Stabler reunited during a Law & Order two-hour crossover event in April 2021.
How much did Hargitay make in Law and Order?
According to a 2018 report by Forbes, Hargitay made $13 million for Law & Order: SVU season 19. The season had 24 episodes, which means that Hargitay would’ve been paid around $540,000 for each episode. This is a raise from what Forbes reported was her salary in 2014.
At the time, Forbes reported that Hargitay made $450,000 per episode, which made her the second highest paid actress on TV that year. In 2018, Hargitay was listed by Forbes as the 11th richest television actor, tying with Modern Family ‘s Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Celebrity Net Worth reports that Hargitay is worth an impressive $100 million, …
Along with Law & Order, Hargitay has also had cameos in shows like Chicago P.D., Chicago Fire and other Law & Order spinoffs. Hargitay is also the founer of the Joyful Heart Foundation, an organization she established in 2004 to support to survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and child abuse.
Hargitay made her debut as Detective Benson (now Commander Benson) on Law & Order: SVU, a spinoff of Law & Order, in September 1999. The show followed Detective Benson and her partner, Detective Elliot Stabler ( Christopher Meloni ), as they worked in the Special Victims Unit in a fictionalized version of the New York City Police Department.
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